A Song of Weal and Woe
In a village far away, there was a young couple who could not conceive a child, and it brought them great sorrow. By day the wife would pick flowers and herbs in the forest to sell at market, singing to lift her spirits, and at night would pray to the Fairies to bless them with a child of their own. On a morning like any other while collecting lavender strands in the hills, the young woman came across a sleeping Fairy child curled up on a strawberry leaf and gently brought her up into her hands for a closer look. As she did so the child’s wings fell away and the babe grew to the size of a human girl three years of age, rubbing her witch-green eyes as she woke; with a voice of purest music she called the young wife “mother”. Years passed and the couple raised the child as their own, naming her Anais’nin (strawberry flower) and devoting themselves to her. A peculiar child was she, in that she never spoke except to sing, and her words held such power as to bring fortune and luck to all who heard her happy melodies – though when she would take to sorrow, likewise her song would bring ruin and decay. Her parents loved her openly and honestly, and in their purity brought clarity and light to her songs for many years. News of the child with magic in her voice spread across the land, bringing rumors of her parents continually increasing fortunes alongside them. Jealousy soon bloomed in the hearts of evil mortals like a bramble, and the king sent his knights to capture the girl and bring her back as his bride, ignoring the cries of her parents and the townspeople alike as the armoured guards raced back towards the castle with Anais’nin tied up behind them. In their eyes, no commoners should be allowed to hold something so precious and so valuable, something that could stir such fate and fortune. The king demanded that she sing for him but her sorrow was so great that when the first few notes fell from her lips, black and terrible thorns sprouted from the wood and stone of the great hall, trapping the lords and ladies inside. The king commanded her to stop but she sang on, dark creatures summoned by her voice prowled wispy tendrils of shadow that licked at the heels of the greedy monarch and his retainers. In a panic, the royal mage Silenced the girl and as the knights cut back the thorns, the monsters retreated into the realms from whence they came. Enraged, the king locked Anais’nin up in the highest tower and decreed that she would not be released until she sang a song of wealth and power for the kingdom on their wedding day. Anais’nin now sang where only birds could hear, and they carried her tears and her melodic prayers to Ye’Cind, God of Music and Magic. Ye’Cind took pity on the young girl and gave her the power to alter hearts and minds as effortlessly as she did fortune and Fey, granting her a portion of his strength - for weeks she lived in the tower and wove haunting refrains that held the power of the grandest symphony, waiting to be summoned. On the day of their wedding Anais’nin was brought before the king once more, radiant as a star in her gown and glow of her youth; beside the king stood his headsman with a polished axe and a silent promise. She raised her arms to the sky as the sweetest song filled the room and the crowd was swept with such deep remorse that they fell to their knees in tears… all save the king. As she sang louder, wildflowers and grasses cracked through the wood and trees burst forth from the stone, reclaiming the cold castle for the forest and Fey that had begun to gather as the humans sobbed and drew closer to their iron-hearted king, clutching at his robes and hands as he attempted to flee. The music reached crescendo just as the once-lords and once-ladies began to tear the king apart in desperate repentance, and the glittering, fogged twilight of the Feywild rushed over everyone and everything. As it touched the skin of the humans, they began to change, twisting and taking new forms as Killoren. As the song’s final note echoed across the court the fog faded back across into the Feywild, taking the castle and the Killoren with it as Ye’Cind and Anais'nin stood alone amidst what was once the crowded hall, and he took the king’s place at her side forevermore.